An Binh ward in central Can Tho city has 10 local canals that have been increasingly used for commercial shipping and been subject to tidal flooding in the high water season. These events are contributing to an increase in riverbank erosion. In some areas of the city, concrete embankments are being built. However, this is not always an affordable solution. To mitigate the erosion in An Binh, households along the canals have built bamboo fences, grow hyacinth and plant trees.

This Co-Management of Riverbank Erosion Control project developed new institutional mechanisms that combined community initiative and oversight with government technical and financial support. This approached enabled the successful incorporation of community knowledge of bank vulnerability and stabilisation, which was supplemented by a formal technical assessment. The local community were also part of the planning, decision-making, construction and project oversight. The project resulted in the building of three kilometres of a biological embankment. This is twice the originally planned length and was possible because of local community contributions of 980 person-days of labour and VND 170 millions (or about USD $7,700).

Citation: ISET–International and CCCO Can Tho. (2016). Co-management of riverbank erosion control in Can Tho. Can Tho, Vietnam: Institute for Social and Environmental Transition-International.